Details revealed about Hearthstone’s first Blackrock Mountain boss

If you missed Blizzard’s PAX East announcement last week—or the data-mining the week before—Hearthstone’s next single-player adventure has been officially announced. Based off of the World of Warcraft zone of the the same name, the Blackrock Mountain adventure will follow a similar format as Hearthstone’s Curse of Naxxramas adventure by pitting you against bosses from some of Blackrock Mountain’s raids. The first boss will be Coren Direbrew in 'The Grim Guzzler Bar', and thanks to the folks over at BlizzPro, details on his fight have come to light.

Now then, let's enter the Grim Guzzler. Coren’s hero power and health were confirmed in a post on Hearthstone’s official site. As seen by the image above, it’s called ‘Pile On!’ and automatically puts a minion from each deck onto the board at the start of his turn. BlizzPro revealed that the Heroic difficulty version of this power puts two of Coren’s minions on the board to your one, and his deck is full of huge, high cost minions to be grabbed. Because the effect happens on his turn, your minion will be able to attack first, but if your deck doesn’t have large bodies to match you could quickly fall behind.

Additionally, he uses a new card called the Dark Iron Bouncer, a boss-only card that won’t be collectable. The Dark Iron Bouncer is a 6 mana minion with 4 attack, 8 health, and the card text “Always wins Brawls”—referring to the Warrior card Brawl, which Coren also has in his deck. BlizzPro says Coren would play a Dark Iron Bouncer when he was falling behind on board, then Brawl the next turn to wipe everything but his own Bouncer. It’s a powerful combo, and one I’m actually glad we won’t be able to see in constructed play.

Blackrock Mountain doesn’t have a release date yet, but is due out next month. These details are a good indication that this adventure will feel familiar to those who enjoyed Naxxramas. Head over to BlizzPro to read about their full experience fighting the Coren Direbrew.

Edit: I was initially under the impression that Coren Direbrew's title was "The Grim Guzzler" but was incorrect. The Grim Guzzler is the name of another WoW location and the place you will fight him in the Blackrock Mountain adventure, not a nickname Coren earned for guzzling grimly. I have updated the text to reflect this.